Corticonigral projections recruit substantia nigra pars lateralis dopaminergic neurons for auditory threat memories

Lorenzo Sansalone, Emily L. Twedell, Rebekah C. Evans, Alejandra Boronat-Garcia, Renshu Zhang and Zayd M. Khaliq ()
Additional contact information
Lorenzo Sansalone: National Institutes of Health
Emily L. Twedell: National Institutes of Health
Rebekah C. Evans: National Institutes of Health
Alejandra Boronat-Garcia: National Institutes of Health
Renshu Zhang: National Institutes of Health
Zayd M. Khaliq: National Institutes of Health

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Dopaminergic neurons (DANs) in the substantia nigra pars lateralis (SNL) project to the tail of striatum, where they contribute to threat behaviors. Auditory cortex contributes to threat conditioning, but whether it directly modulates DANs is unclear. Here, we show that SNL DANs fire irregularly, achieve rapid maximal firing rates, exhibit distinct ionic conductances, and receive predominantly excitatory input. This contrasts with substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) DANs that fire regularly and receive mainly inhibitory input, establishing SNL DANs as a physiologically distinct dopaminergic subpopulation. Functional mapping revealed robust excitatory input from auditory and temporal association cortices to SNL DANs, but not SNc DANs. In behavioral experiments, inhibiting neurotransmitter release from either SNL DANs or cortical afferents to SNL resulted in impaired auditory threat conditioning. Thus, our work reveals robust functional corticonigral projections to SNL DANs which directly regulate threat behaviors.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63132-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-63132-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63132-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().